


cruel universe

by jilliancares



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: First Meetings, First Words, Getting Together, Identity Reveal, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23724841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: Peter Parker is possibly the only person with no interest in finding his soulmate.Unfortunately, his soulmate finds him. And it's Spider-Man's name on that little gold card.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 66
Kudos: 1101
Collections: Marvel





	cruel universe

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by @masterpostsmakemehappy on tumblr! hope you enjoy!!! ♡

Peter Parker doesn’t want to meet his soulmate.

He figures he’s probably unique in this way. Well, in a of couple ways. But this one would possibly alarm people more than if he told them he was Spider-Man.

He hadn’t always felt like this, of course. When he was younger, he had big, dramatic dreams about meeting his soulmate. How couldn’t he, when his First Words were so romantic?

_I finally found you._

Peter probably says his words first. It’s what he’s always assumed, given the context. He’ll say something just unique enough that his soulmate will have never heard it spoken before, and they’ll look at Peter with surprise, their mouth open and their gaze soft. _I finally found you,_ they’ll say.

And then Peter will live out the rest of his days in a state of terror.

How could he not, being Spider-Man?

He’ll either have to tell them right away, being that soulmates are supposed to tell each other everything, or he’ll try to hide it from them in some misplaced attempt to protect them. Meanwhile, he’ll be beside himself with anxiety the entire time, because by being soulmates with him, their life will _constantly_ be in danger. Anyone who wanted to hurt Spider-Man need only figure out who his soulmate is.

And so, Peter Parker doesn’t want to meet his soulmate.

It’s not something he thinks about all the time, granted. It’s more of a passing thought, or the kind of thing he gets anxious about just before falling asleep, when his mind has sufficient time to spiral before he sucked into a dream.

It’s not like Peter interacts with a whole bunch of people in his daily life. During his part-time classes and his part-time job, Peter pretty much already knows everybody he interacts with. He doesn’t go out of his way to talk to strangers, other than when he’s Spider-Man, of course. But if someone were to utter those famous words after he’d made some quip and webbed them to the side of a building, then the universe is truly cruel, indeed. Because there’s no way Peter is fated for a criminal.

In fact, if the universe is just, Peter won’t meet his soulmate for years and years to come. Maybe one day he’ll decide to retire as Spider-Man, and that’s when he could meet his soulmate. They’ll be old enough that his soulmate will have begun to feel impatient. _I finally found you,_ they’d say. _After all these years of waiting._

Peter sighs, picking up his dishes and carrying them to the sink. He’ll wash them after patrol tonight. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself. There’s really no telling how exhausted he’ll be by the time he gets home.

Sometimes, patrol is relatively uneventful, just a few small things here and there before Peter turns in for the night. Other times, however, he finds himself swinging back and forth across the city all night, constantly in motion, constantly attending to the next disaster. Peter’s already hoping tonight isn’t one of those nights. He has a test tomorrow.

He changes into his suit before crawling out of the window and letting a web loose. He has a couple different patrol routes and he likes to rotate through them, switch it up.

He stops to help an old lady cross the street, because despite the fact that he’s been doing this long enough to have made a name for himself and no longer gets shot at by police (…often), he’s still the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

She thanks him profusely, holding one of his hands in both of hers, and tells him that he’s a stand-up young man and that New York is lucky to have him. He thanks her in turn and tells her to get home safe, blushing under his mask when she pats him twice on the cheek.

After that, he foils a horribly planned robbery, upends a drug deal, and stops a couple of teenage boys from terrorizing a stray dog.

Peter’s only just swung up to the roof of an office building — both to take a small break and to maybe listen in on his police scanner — when his spidey-sense blares in alarm. He straightens up from his crouch immediately, whirling around to find an empty roof. That can’t be right.

He’s just about to scan the nearby rooftops for danger, or maybe jump off the building and swing away entirely, when a figure moves out of the shadows, having been obscured by the AC unit and generators in the middle of the roof.

It’s Deadpool.

Peter’s never met the man before, but he’s heard all about him. He’s deranged and dangerous and scarily good at what he does. Killing people, that is.

And right now, he has a gun pointed at Peter’s head, his grip unwavering.

“I finally found you,” Deadpool says, chuckling darkly. Peter’s spidey-sense _screams_. And not because Deadpool pulls down on the trigger — his aim is still true, his gun still held aloft, un-shot — but because every inch of Peter’s body is screaming in protest.

Because those are his _First Words_.

And there’s no way in hell that they’re being said to him by _Deadpool_ , with a _gun aimed at his head_.

Peter opens his mouth to respond, but instead quickly clamps his mouth shut. He can’t respond. Because what if he says Deadpool’s First Words back? Then everything will truly be set in stone, and Peter’s going to avoid that possibility entirely, if he can manage it.

Like a true villain, Deadpool continues without prompting, happy to monologue without any input from Spider-Man.

“I’ve been looking all over the city for you,” he says. “And it wasn’t easy! I’m telling you, I almost didn’t want to take this hit. I mean, you’re _Spider-Man_!” He puts his free hand against the side of his face. Despite the mask, Peter can tell his mouth is open. “I’m a big fan, truly.”

Deadpool clucks his tongue, shaking his head. “But I guess even heroes can be pretenders, huh?” he says, his voice sounding dark and dangerous again. “When I heard what you’d done, Spidey… It made even _my_ skin crawl!” He bursts out into laughter, then, and Peter’s spidey-sense — which has been thrumming this entire time — suddenly spikes.

Peter leaps to the side just as a shot rings out, the bullet missing him by a good foot. Deadpool laughs again.

“I love a challenge,” he warns Peter. “And now that I’ve found you, I’m not going to lose you again,” he promises.

And thus begins the longest night of Peter’s life.

He swears to himself that he isn’t going to respond to Deadpool. Isn’t going to say anything to him, because if Deadpool never hears his First Words, then they can’t possibly be soulmates. It’ll just have been chance, a trick of fate, that led to Deadpool saying Peter’s words.

That, Peter can live with. Being fated for a deadly, crazed mercenary? Not so much.

It’s not like fighting a normal villain. Usually, Peter manages to keep the fight contained in one place. He’s used to talking to them, taunting them. Their anger makes them reckless, and on a few rare occasions, Peter’s even been able to talk them down.

With that option of the running, however, Peter’s trying to beat him with his other skills. It shouldn’t be hard to web down the mercenary — and it isn’t — but no matter how many times Peter traps him, no matter how far he gets from him, Deadpool just _keeps showing up_.

Peter has no idea how it’s possible, but he’s starting to think that Deadpool got a hold of some of his web dissolvent. The thought of that is terrifying, because Peter’s pretty sure the only place where anyone could find that is in his own apartment, unless someone somewhere managed to replicate the formula, which would just be a whole other can of worms to deal with.

Peter makes a mental note to switch up the formula of his webbing. It’ll be a hassle, but it’ll be worth it if his enemies have figured out how to dissolve his webs.

“C’mon, Spidey!” Deadpool leers at him, standing on the roof across from him.

Peter’s exhausted. He’s been running for hours, and he isn’t willing to go home. Because what if Deadpool really _did_ get the dissolvent from there? Or, if he didn’t, what if he manages to follow Peter home? He’d easily be able to figure out Peter’s identity with that much alone.

“I thought you were known for your witty one-liners! I thought I’d finally found someone as talkative as me,” Deadpool taunts.

Peter’s trying — desperately, hastily — to come up with a plan. The problem is, he’s a lot more frazzled than he usually would be during a fight. He keeps making stupid, thoughtless mistakes. And not to sound like the angsty, broody teenager he no longer is, but he’s pretty sure it’s the universe’s fault.

Because no matter what he does, he can’t fully invest himself in this fight. His mind is constantly half- _elsewhere_ , trying to debate the possibility of Deadpool being his soulmate, trying to think of a way out of it, trying to find some sort of solution or loophole or _anything_.

Because even if he doesn’t say anything to Deadpool tonight, if Deadpool really is his soulmate, Peter’s going to end up saying something to him at some point. And until that point, Deadpool’s just going to be like this. Ruthless, angry. Murderous.

And Peter isn’t sure that he can keep this up much longer, anyway. Tonight, sure — he could conceivable swing around until morning, maybe try to drop Deadpool’s trail at some point and change out of his suit. He could go to his classes, take his test, and anxiously avoid his apartment for as long as possible.

But eventually, Peter’s going to end up putting the suit on again. He can’t help it, when people out there need him. And as soon as he does, it’s going to be this all over again. All the way up until he says something to Deadpool.

But not yet.

Peter leaps off the building, firing off a web. He grips it with two hands and pulls hard, making himself swing faster. Even still, he realizes he must’ve underestimated Deadpool’s abilities once again.

In Peter’s experience, he’s figured out that it’s pretty hard for people to shoot a moving target. There’s a lot of calculation involved, especially when Peter’s swinging as fast as he is and often-times following an unpredictable path. Even when he’s on the ground, maybe in an alley somewhere, he’s rarely ever gotten shot. He jumps around too much, and his spidey-sense has a knack for telling him just when and where to move.

But Peter’s on a straight path, following the velocity of his swing, and Deadpool either has really good calculations or is just a great shot. Because one second Peter’s flying through the air, and the next his breath is being punched out of his lungs, a hot, fiery pain emanating from the side of his torso.

He loses his grip on his webs and free falls for a scary couple of seconds, watching the buildings and lights of New York City tumble past him end over end before he manages to shoot off another web with a punched-out gasp. His left hand is pressed tight over his right side while his right hand none-too-carefully controls his webs.

He ends up tumbling onto a roof, managing a couple of steps before he loses balance and rolls to a stop, landing on his back and groaning. His fingers feel wet and his head is spinning, but already he’s trying to push himself back up. He just needs to web his side closed. His healing factor will push out the bullet in time, even if it’ll hurt like hell.

Peter’s just managed to sit up onto his elbow when Deadpool appears on the roof in front of him. Literally appears, out of nowhere.

He has some sort of teleportation device, then. Not web dissolvent.

Peter flops back to the roof with a groan, mentally crossing off his reminder to create a new web formula. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

“Well, well, well,” Deadpool says. “Cliché, but it sounds good.” He cocks his gun, and Peter hears it click. Apparently, Deadpool turns on the safety when teleporting. “Any last words, Spidey?”

And Peter’s delirious with pain. He’s exhausted from running all night and sick of this game of cat and mouse. If this really is fate, then there’s nothing he can do to change it.

“Tons, you got a pen?” he mumbles. He almost doesn’t expect Deadpool to hear it — almost didn’t _want_ Deadpool to hear it — but Peter’s at least 99% sure Deadpool heard it when his words are followed by the sound of Deadpool’s gun falling to the ground and clattering against the rooftop.

He’s just standing there, staring at Peter. His strangely expressive mask is expressionless.

“I — what?” Deadpool says, his voice carefully even.

Peter huffs, pressing himself up once again. The pain is screaming in his stomach and he gasps once he’s almost upright.

He thinks, maybe, that the injury is a little bit worse than he’d assumed. Deadpool shot at a moving target. The bullet didn’t so much hit Peter as he _swung into it_. There’s blood all over his suit and it’s seeping through his glove, warm and wet and sickening to touch.

Deadpool crosses the space between them in just three long strides, though Peter flinches once he realizes how close he is.

“Did I say your words?” Deadpool says, squatting next to Peter and staring at him intently, the whites of his mask wide. “You gave me some boring First Words by the way, no offense. This is something we’re gonna laugh about in the future, right?”

Peter just scoffs, using about all of his energy to force himself to his feet. Deadpool rises with him, silent and suspiciously not setting off Peter’s spidey-sense anymore. Peter manages to web his injuries and stumble toward the edge of the roof, mentally cataloguing what first aid supplies he has at home and whether he’ll be fit to patrol tomorrow.

“Wait, where are you going?” Deadpool says, trailing after him like a lost puppy.

“Uh, home?” Peter scoffs. “Unless you were still planning to kill me.”

“I wouldn’t kill my soulmate,” Deadpool mumbles. When Peter doesn’t respond, Deadpool grabs him by the wrist. His grip is loose enough that Peter could pull away if he wanted to. “You are, right? You’re him?”

“I’m tired,” is all Peter says. Because he doesn’t want to deal with this right now. With the universe’s idea of a sick joke, having him fated for someone who kills people for a living. That’s literally the exact opposite of what Peter does — he saves people. For _free_. “Don’t follow me.”

And then he swings home, having to stop three separate times to catch his breath and reapply his makeshift bandage.

\--

His test, as one might’ve expected, went horribly. Peter dragged himself out of bed the next morning, exhausted and sore but pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t bleeding through his bandage, and went to campus.

His head was foggier than he would’ve like while taking his exam and it took an embarrassing amount for him to stay awake in his classes afterward. By the time he’s finally on the subway headed back to his apartment, he’s ready to take a good, long nap and then go on a careful and heavily edited patrol, wherein he hopefully won’t have to do anything strenuous enough to reopen his wound.

His eyes are already closed, seeing as he managed to find a seat on the subway, and his head bobs as the train rattles along its tracks, his body listing to the side each time they stop.

“ _Psst_ ,” someone says. And then, still in a whisper, “Peter!”

Peter’s eyes fly open and he finds himself staring at Deadpool. The man’s sitting across from him, and his legs are stretched out far enough that he can tap the toe of his boot against the side of Peter’s ankle.

Peter tenses, realizing that Deadpool — his _soulmate_ — is here, and not only that, _he knows Peter’s identity_.

“Don’t panic!” Deadpool says immediately, after Peter’s already begun to spiral. Peter glances around frantically, because there’s no way in hell he wants anyone to see normal Peter Parker interacting with the famous mercenary and wondering _why_.

There are about seventeen questions that Peter wants to ask him right now — _how do you know who I am? How did you find me? How long have you been following me?_ — but more pressing than his curiosity is his need to get away.

He’d fully planned on talking to Deadpool again, at some point. He knew he couldn’t avoid his soulmate forever, and he’d expected Deadpool to be out and about tonight. He’d thought he still had several hours to debate over what to say to the other man.

As he was falling asleep last night, Peter had developed some kind of plan in his head. It went something along the lines of:

1) Get Deadpool to re-examine his morals and become a good guy  
2) Become close enough to actual like and trust Deadpool  
3) Slowly begin to court Deadpool  
4) Reveal his identity and begin to progress their relationship

But _this_? Deadpool skipped the first — _and most important_ — steps. Now, he’s sitting across from Peter Parker, leaning forward in his seat eagerly, and probably under the impression that Peter’s just going to forgive and forget the fact that Deadpool had chased him all over New York and tried to kill him.

The subway comes to a stop, and even though Peter’s still several stops from his destination, he leaps to his feet and muscles his way through the crowd, emerging onto the platform and darting up the stairs. He has no idea how Deadpool knows who he is, or how he managed to find him on the subway, but maybe he doesn’t yet know where Peter lives. Maybe he hasn’t gone that far.

“Are you avoiding me?” says a voice from behind him, and Peter ducks into an alley, trusting Deadpool will follow.

He does.

“How do you know who I am?” Peter demands. “How did you find me? Why — how—” he gestures uselessly. Somehow, he’s much more eloquent when he’s in the suit.

“Well, you told me not to follow you, but you’re my soulmate,” Wade begins, holding up a finger. Peter feels angry that he ever expected more from the merc. “It was easy to figure out who you were once I had your address. Also, I tracked you to campus.”

“Deadpool,” Peter starts angrily.

“Wade, actually,” Deadpool chimes in happily. “Wade Wilson.”

“Whatever,” Peter snaps. “ _This_ —” he gestures furiously between the two of them. “—is a mistake.”

Wade, surprisingly, laughs. “Don’t I know it!” he wheezes. “I mean, you’re _gorgeous_. And _I’m_ — well, the universe is definitely laughing at your expense.”

Peter doesn’t exactly know what to say to that. “Look,” he says. “I don’t approve of what you do, so this isn’t going to work. Also, you tried to kill me last night, if I’m remembering correctly.”

“Oh, you are,” Wade says. “But apparently the guy who hired me was lying. I don’t know why I believed that Spider-Man killed his kid, but, uh, he won’t be telling lies like those anymore, if you get what I mean.” Somehow, his mask winks.

Peter gapes, because he’s pretty sure that Wade just told him he killed a guy at some point between now and when they last saw each other.

“Anyway,” Wade continues obliviously. “This is for you.” He thrusts a grocery bag into Peter’s hands, though Peter hadn’t noticed him carrying it before and isn’t entirely sure where it came from. “Some stuff to help with the bullet wound. Do you have a healing factor?”

Right. This is just — too much.

“Thanks,” Peter says, because he’s tired and being polite comes naturally to him. “I’m going home. I’ll talk to you — later. Tonight.”

With that, he turns and walks the rest of the way home, his spidey-sense thankfully silent.

The bag really is full of helpful supplies. Much more variety and of much better quality than the stuff Peter has lying around, so he rebandages his wound before crawling into his bed for a well-deserved nap. He’ll find Deadpool when he wakes up. He’ll lay ground rules and they’ll figure it out. For now, Peter just needs to sleep.

\--

It’s past midnight when Peter wakes up, but a healing factor could do that to a guy. In fact, he’s pretty sure he would’ve slept through the night had his spidey-sense not jerked him into consciousness, his heart pounding wildly as he sits up, examining his surroundings.

His apartment’s small. There are two rooms and a bathroom, meaning that the living room and kitchen are connected. Peter’s currently in his bedroom, the door closed, and he can’t hear any movement in the next room, yet his spidey-sense hasn’t shut up yet.

Someone’s definitely here.

Movement draws his eye and Peter whips his head around to stare at the window, where the curtain is billowing in the breeze from the open window.

Peter definitely didn’t open that window himself.

He scans the room a second time, fingers tentatively coming to rest on the bracelets that are his webshooters, and finds his breath hitching in his throat when his gaze stops on an outline standing in front of his closet, just a little less dark than the shadows surrounding it.

“You gonna web me up, baby boy?”

Peter groans, dropping his face in his hands and letting out a shaky breath. It’s Deadpool, because of course it’s Deadpool.

The bed sinks beside him and Peter manages not to flinch, even when his body lists to the side enough to press his bare shoulder against Wade’s leather-clad one.

“What are you doing here?” Peter manages, his voice still thick with sleep.

“You weren’t out patrolling, and you said we were gonna meet tonight,” Wade says. “And then I thought, ‘what if I wasn’t the only mercenary that asshole hired?’ So I came over here just in case some other merc managed to figure out Spider-Man’s identity and murder him. Thankfully, I’m the only home invader here tonight!”

He pokes Peter in the stomach.

“Thankfully,” Peter repeats, sarcastic.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re totally adorable?” Wade continues, oblivious to the fact that Peter’s not exactly ecstatic about his presence in his home. “I mean, I thought I might be in for a surprise tonight, considering I half-expected to find you strung up and bleeding out, but shirtless and sleepy Peter Parker is a _much_ better surprise.”

Peter blushes despite himself, lifting his head up out of his hands and scooting the tiniest bit away from Wade.

“Wade,” Peter says, and Wade sighs happily before turning onto his side, facing Peter. He starts tracing patterns onto Peter’s thigh over the blanket and Peter has to force himself to concentrate. “I’m not ready to be in a relationship right now.”

Wade doesn’t stop tracing patterns on him. “You didn’t look up a picture of my skin, did you?”

“What? No,” Peter says, already shaking his head. “It’s just — I’d hoped not to meet my soulmate for a long time, you know? If anyone figures out their — _your_ — connection to Spider-Man, you’ll be in danger.”

Wade laughs, making Peter huff angrily. “That’s not a joke,” he insists. “You could die.”

“Petey, normally I don’t advise it, but maybe you _should_ have looked me up. I can’t die.”

“No one’s invincible.”

“Right. But even when people kill me, I just come back. I think Death finds me unattractive,” he says. Peter finds that hard to believe. It’s very obvious, thanks to the skin-tight suit, to see that Wade is fit. Peter doesn’t doubt that Wade’s muscles would feel firm to the touch even when he isn’t flexing.

“ _And_ ,” Peter continues, because he’s not going to let this revelation derail his train of thought. “Our morals don’t line up. I won’t date someone who thinks murdering people is okay.”

“Not even the bad people?”

“No,” Peter says firmly. “No one gets to be judge, jury, and executioner.”

“Right,” Deadpool says, splaying his hand across Peter’s thigh now. There’s a blanket and a glove between them, but Peter can still feel the heat of his touch on his thigh. “So you’re telling me after I clean up my act, we can do all that lovey-dovey soulmate shit that I never imagined would actually happen to me?”

“ _If_ you can clean up your act.”

“I’m gonna need a coach,” Deadpool presses. “A good role model. Someone I see, I don’t know, every night to keep me on track?” He’s staring at Peter expectantly.

“No more killing,” Peter insists. “You can patrol with me if you can keep up.”

“Deal,” Wade says, and he swoops in to press a masked kiss against Peter’s cheek before he can protest. He’s already halfway out of the window by the time Peter gets his bearings. Peter can tell he’s grinning at him through the mask. “By the way, I _am_ happy that I finally found you.”

Somehow, it’s just as alarming to hear it the second time.

But in a good way.

\--

“M’soulmate,” Wade says, sounding like a douchebag as he holds out a taco, his legs swinging over the edge of the roof.

“I thought I told you to stop saying that?” Peter jokes, but he finds he doesn’t actually mind so much. Hearing Wade call him his soulmate stopped being a cause for anxiety and started being a thrill a good while ago, even when he says it like… that.

“You can’t stop true love, Webs,” Wade says easily. Much like he says most things, really. The man has no filter.

Peter almost wants to tell him not to push it, but he can’t. Because honestly, he really doesn’t mind.

It’s been months since their disastrous first meeting (and almost equally disastrous subsequent meetings) and Wade has been on his best behavior the entire time. Turns out, he’d already been killing people much less often than Peter had assumed, because apparently, he’d already been a big fan of Spider-Man. That’s why he agreed to that hit on Spider-Man so easily. He’d felt betrayed. Kids were off-limits to Wade.

Since meeting, they’d spent almost every night together. They would pair up for patrols, the two of them having made headlines several unfortunate times, and afterward they would kick back on a rooftop, usually with a meal of Wade’s choosing. Wade’s humor matched Peter’s to a scary extent. Scarier, perhaps, was how thoughtful and smart Wade really was beneath that humor — it was something Peter hadn’t been expecting.

Wade had even — terrifyingly — demonstrated his ability to not die. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but a villain had gotten the jump on him and Wade had ended up with a bullet in his head. Peter had dispatched the villain in a terrifying frenzy, barely remembering it afterward, and lugged Wade up to the top of a building, desperately hoping that Wade hadn’t been joking all those nights ago when he’d said he couldn’t die.

That was the first time that Peter figured the universe might have been not-so-wrong, pairing the two of them up. He’d realized how much he’d cared about Wade. And he’d also been prepared to curse the universe for its cruelty, but Wade had woken up within minutes, groaning and already in the midst of cracking a joke. He’d seemed surprised to see Peter still with him, and more surprised still to find his head resting on Peter’s thigh.

And despite the fact that Wade knew where Peter lived, he was surprisingly good at respecting Peter’s boundaries. Ever since that first night, he hadn’t stopped by uninvited. Although, that hadn’t stopped him from begging Peter to come over to his apartment about a million times.

(Peter agreed reluctantly the first time, and not so reluctantly the following times. Wade always had an abundance of food. And he had Netflix _and_ Hulu, not to mention almost every gaming console Peter could think of.)

(Also, he made for good company. Peter had already started falling for him long ago, he’d just yet to admit it.)

Except — maybe he’d admitted it a little bit. He’d kissed Wade on three separate occasions, at least.

The first time, Wade had shown him his face. More than just his chin, at least, which he seemed able to live with Peter seeing so long as they were busy eating food.

Peter had taken one look at his scared face and his bright blue eyes — crinkled with worry, at the time — and leaned forward to kiss him on the mouth. Wade had been too surprised to do anything back, and Peter had been embarrassed enough about his forwardness that he’d swung back across Manhattan to lay in bed and scream into his pillow.

A week later, Wade had brought it up, half-joking that he thought it was a hallucination on his part and half-seriously asking whether they could do it again so he could actually kiss Peter back this time. And, well — Peter had found it hard to refuse.

The third time had been at Wade’s apartment. Peter had bent down to kiss him unthinkingly after bidding him goodnight, about to climb out the window and head home, but Wade had gotten over his surprise fairly quickly that time. He’d grabbed Peter by the waist and kissed him hard enough to leave him dizzy. He’d almost swung into three separate buildings on his way home that night.

So, yeah. Things were going well. Peter wasn’t so mad at the universe these days. In fact, he was kind of thankful it’d brought him to Wade.

It’s only after they’ve both polished off their tacos — Wade ended up bringing Mexican food most of the time, not that Peter could complain — that Peter stands up, looking at Wade expectantly.

“Are you headed out?” Wade says, a hint of a whine in his voice.

“It’s getting late,” Peter hedges.

“We could go back to my apartment!” Wade suggests. “We can re-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender again.”

“Or we could watch it at mine,” Peter says casually, and Wade’s body tenses in anticipation. “I was kind of thinking I’d have my boyfriend spend the night.”

Wade audibly chokes on a breath. “Did you just say boyfriend?” he blurts.

“I’ll meet you there,” Peter says, already backing up toward the edge of the roof.

Wade jumps to his feet. “Spidey! Did you just say boyfriend?!”

“I trust you still have the address?” Peter says. He’s being obnoxious on purpose. He pulls his mask down before Wade can see him grin.

“Petey!” Wade protests, still waiting on the answer, and Peter laughs.

“Yeah, Wade,” he says. “I did say boyfriend.” And then he falls backward off the roof, watching New York fly past him as he plummets, a joyous laugh escaping him. He can still hear Wade whooping from the rooftop when he shoots off his first web, grinning wide despite no one being able to see it.


End file.
